Tascam 122mkii - Sam Palermo - Teac/Tascam Master Tech

[OldiesButGoodies]

Just a quick shout out for Sam Palermo aka Skywave (business card attached,  Teac/Tascam master tech).  He took my decent sounding Tascam 122mkii cassette deck and turned it into a back-to-original-specs unit with new heads, professionally calibrated.  This made what I heard originally sound much inferior.  I (and, I am sure, many of you) are able to approximate the calibration of a typical deck,  but a pro with the equipment and tapes to measure freq response, distortion, etc.  and the experience to use them brings a whole new level of performance to bear.  Very happy with the results (thanks to PBJ, who referred him to me). 

This took a while to get done (like 10 months),  and was not cheap - but I am a happy camper and planning to keep this deck as my reference. 

OBG

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

Where is this guy?

[OldiesButGoodies]

Is the biz card not showing in the post?  Will repost as jpeg here.

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

Oh.   I thought you were talking about a local guy.

[SkywaveTDR]

It looks like I just joined another forum. I am in the Chicago area and the other guy who worked for Teac and still is working on them is Russ in New Jersey. The reason people send me products by shipping is that they get tired of the back and forth trips to the local service guys as they practice to get the unit right. I am no better than any good Technician but I do have a lot of experience and worked at Teac Chicago for the training I got. There are some good local Technicians but they are few and most of them run shops where other customers have posted their results in using them. One example is Hi Tech shop in Nashville.
If people have Teac/ Tascam questions you can shoot them to me and I try to help.

Sam,

[papabearjew]

Hi Sam,
Brad Hersch here (PBJ)
You took real good care of me on my 122mkII back in May of 2013. You did an awesome job which is why I referred OBG (a friend) to you among others.

Regards,
 Brad

[Sir Thrift-a-Lot]

It looks like I just joined another forum.

Cool.   Nice to "meet" you.

[schwarcw]

Glad to hear this worked out for you Pepe.

Another option is New Jersey Factory Service.  That use to be the Teac/Tascam East Coast Service Center.  Their repairs are also top notch.  They still do a thriving business with the recording studio in NYC.

I had my Teac serviced there (heads, belts, alignment, etc.).  He did the job in about two weeks.  Here is a link to their website:  http://www.njfactoryservice.com/aboutus.html

[OldiesButGoodies]

Thanks - the Teac C-1 is my next project deck - will see where that leads me and may give your guy some work.  Sam has a waiting list of customers so he is not hurting for work.    He us good though!

OBG

[papabearjew]

Russ is a good guy too but I have only used Sam. If anyone is interested log onto tapeheads.net. You will find an incredible amount of free advice/guidance on DiY jobs. These guys donate a huge amount of their time for free. And they all have stellar reputations. Sam is probably the most active responder for our cries for help though Russ is up there too. For ReVox it's Tinman.  He's a great guy.  He's in L.A. though. Nakamichi would be Perry in Virginia & Nacdoc. I have used Perry & he really got my CR3A singing. Overall listen to these guys. They really know their shit.  When they do repairs it's done right.  And if you're going to do something incredibly stupid they'll tell you...especially Sam   
If I left someone out I apologize. This was off the top of my head.

I'm very loyal to Tom but I know right now he's being a wuss and laying around after yesterday's surgery. I shouldn't talk though that's pretty much all I've been doing since cancer kicked my ass over 4 years ago. Unfortunately right now I'm limited to RTR tapes, FM HD, ipod, Spotify or Pandora. Too painful to get up to flip records or cassettes. I guess I need a designated flipper!